Queer Places:
University of Cambridge, 4 Mill Ln, Cambridge CB2 1RZ
Ascension Parish Burial Ground
Cambridge, City of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
George Edward Moore OM FBA (4
November 1873 – 24 October 1958), usually cited as G. E. Moore, was an English
philosopher. He was, with Bertrand
Russell, Ludwig
Wittgenstein, and (before them) Gottlob
Frege, one of the founders of analytic
philosophy. He was part of the
Cambridge Apostles. Along with Russell, he led the turn away from idealism in
British philosophy, and became well known for his advocacy of common
sense concepts, his contributions to ethics, epistemology,
and metaphysics, and
"his exceptional personality and moral character".[6]
Moore was Professor of Philosophy at the University
of Cambridge, highly influential among (though not a member of) the Bloomsbury
Group, and the editor of the influential journal Mind.
He was elected a fellow of the British
Academy in 1918. He was a member of the Cambridge
Apostles, the intellectual secret society, from 1894 to 1901, and chairman
of the Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club from 1912 to 1944.[7][8] A humanist,
he served as President of the British Ethical Union (now known as Humanists
UK) from 1935 to 1936.[9]
Moore was born in Upper
Norwood, in south-east London, on 4 November 1873, the middle child of
seven of Dr Daniel Moore and Henrietta Sturge. His grandfather was the author Dr
George Moore. His eldest brother was Thomas
Sturge Moore, a poet, writer and engraver.[10][11][12]
He was educated at Dulwich
College[13] and
in 1892 went up to Trinity
College, Cambridge to study classics and moral
sciences.[14] He
became a Fellow of Trinity in 1898, and went on to hold the University
of Cambridge chair of Mental Philosophy and Logic, from 1925 to 1939.
Moore is best known today for his defence of ethical
non-naturalism, his emphasis on common
sense in philosophical method, and the paradox
that bears his name. He was admired by and influential among other
philosophers, and also by the Bloomsbury
Group, but is (unlike his colleague and admirer Russell, who, for some
years thought he fulfilled his "ideal of genius")[15] mostly
unknown today outside of academic philosophy. Moore's essays are known for
their clear, circumspect writing style, and for his methodical and patient
approach to philosophical problems. He was critical of modern philosophy for
its lack of progress,
which he believed was in stark contrast to the dramatic advances in the natural
sciences since the Renaissance.
Among Moore's most famous works are his book Principia
Ethica,[16] and
his essays, "The Refutation of Idealism", "A
Defence of Common Sense", and "A Proof of the External World". Moore was
an important and much admired member of the secretive Cambridge
Apostles, a discussion group with members drawn from the British
intellectual elite. At the time another member, a 22-year-old Bertrand
Russell, wrote “I almost worship him as if he were a god. I have never felt
such an extravagant admiration for anybody.”[17]
From 1918-19 he was president of the Aristotelian
Society, a group committed to the systematic study of philosophy, its
historical development and its methods and problems.[18]
G. E. Moore died at the Evelyn
Nursing Home on 24 October 1958;[19] he
was cremated at Cambridge Crematorium on 28 October 1958 and his ashes
interred at the Parish
of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge;
his wife, Dorothy Ely (1892-1977) was buried there. Together they had two
sons, the poet Nicholas
Moore and the composer Timothy Moore.[20][21]
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